I don't want to do this. This story means a lot to me and I've really grown as a person and as a writer doing this but my housing situation has gotten so bad that Webnovel's minimum guarantee of 60$ is becoming more and more appealing.
I've uploaded my Patreon on there I'm 3 chapters ahead, currently working on the fourth but my situation has gotten so discouraging that I'm considering dropping this.
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CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Rio realized that his plans may have been a bit too idealistic.
Guns were the great equalizer; with them, the lines between strong and weak men had become paper thin.
Quirks expanded this line once more, but most people—and the guards he had seen so far—didn't have Quirks strong enough to dismiss the threat of a gun.
That was why most of them used guns themselves to attack.
Step three was barely underway, but Rio felt he may have to revise his plans soon.
The group from the cells struggled to heave the machine guns lying around, but they failed as they breathed heavily.
Rio didn't know why he expected a group of children who had been subsisting on nutrient bars and had weak, atrophying muscles to lift a gun.
He feared the recoil alone would be enough to kill them. As they were now, they were more of a burden than an asset.
Rio was about to move in to stop them, but Daiki held him back.
Rio looked up at him in confusion, but the taller boy shook his head. "They've showcased their resolve to die for freedom. Don't spit on it with your words."
They stopped trying to pick up the more powerful but heavier machine guns and instead opted to pick up the pistols lying on the ground.
The healthier ones managed to pick up some machine guns, others picking up the pistols, while the weakest of the bunch salvaged ammunition.
A clear division of labor had been formed.
Rio opted to split them up. He would be attracting the bulk of the enemies' fire with his squad, while those groups would split up the enemy forces even more, and they would have to account for the hostages held by Sae.
Rio would bulldoze through this whole building if it meant getting out.
Rio and his gang made their way up the stairs.
Underground floor three.
One by one, they pushed open doors to find them abandoned. Beds were left unmade; the blankets lay crumpled as the inhabitants of the bed fled in a hurry.
He also stepped into a cafeteria of sorts. Food trays sat on tables filled with cold food. Panic had clearly gripped the facility before their escape began. Rio stepped over overturned chairs and cracked monitors, his footfalls echoing through the cold corridor.
Kenji suddenly stopped at a half-open steel door. "There's something below," he murmured, nostrils twitching. "I can hear the humming of a machine and heavy breathing. It's an eerie sound."
The room was pitch black—a suffocating, haunted silence hanging over it like a shroud.
Rio said nothing and stepped inside.
It was a dimly lit room.
Tables and chairs dotted the place, filled with notes and equipment.
A beaker lay cracked on a table, with other equipment strewn all over the floor.
Whoever had been here last hadn't taken the alarm very well.
They had been looking for something urgently, that much was clear from how ruined the place was—with expensive lab equipment tossed around like trash.
He walked amidst the sea of equipment, heading deeper into the room.
Kenji said he had heard someone inside. He would trust the boy's instincts.
Then he saw it.
Rio's stomach twisted at the abomination looking back at him.
A large glass vat stood in the center, filled with pink nutrient fluid, its surface rippling ever so slightly with each rising bubble. Suspended inside—barely recognizable as human—was a boy.
The boy's body was mutilated beyond comprehension. His limbs were gone, and so were his arms, as well as his legs.
His torso was sliced open, exposing his organs in various stages of decay and regeneration. Most were missing. Only a pale coil of intestines, a discolored liver, and a faintly pulsing heart remained.
It defied logic. But the boy still breathed.
The monitor beside the tank showed a steady heartbeat. Just barely.
Rio staggered back, bile rising. He turned away and vomited onto the cold steel floor.
He wiped his mouth with a trembling sleeve, forcing himself to turn back. He couldn't afford to look away.
Scattered across the nearby desk were journals, video logs, and digital tablets still flickering with data. One of the monitors displayed a paused video, mid-sentence—an unfinished recording of the latest entry on Subject H-21.
They didn't even deign to give him a name, just a number devoid of any humanity.
Rio's hand hovered over the controls. He fast-forwarded through the clips, his eyes scanning logs at an unnatural pace.
The deeper he read, the more his stomach churned.
Subject H-21: Male. Age – 12. Quirk: Hyper-Regeneration.
The researchers hadn't bothered with his background. No name. No history. No humanity. Just data on a computer screen.
The logs detailed countless procedures—vivisections, organ removals, stress tests, even personality evaluations. His body was torn apart, stitched together, and torn apart again. The researchers had discovered early on that his organs regrew at rapid speeds, and from there, the experiments escalated.
They harvested and sold his organs on the black market.
Funding necessity met – right kidney harvested. Next: liver lobe extraction scheduled 14:30.
It had been going on for over a year.
They'd even attempted to extract his heart, but stopped when it led to cardiac arrest. That was the line for them. Not ethics—just utility.
The most recent logs were worse. They described attempts to find the minimum number of organs a human could survive on with a hyper-regeneration quirk. They subjected him to extreme starvation, blunt force trauma, electrocution, exposure to sub-zero temperatures.
Over and over, he recovered.
Rio read the final log entry in silence. His eyes burned.
The subject has stopped speaking six months ago. He no longer shows reaction to external stimuli. Further testing required.
He had stopped reacting; there would be no more screams.
He was twelve.
He was just twelve.
Rio stepped closer to the vat. His reflection rippled in the nutrient fluid. The boy was little more than a breathing corpse, his body locked in an endless cycle of healing and destruction.
But then the water stirred.
A violent bubble rose to the top—then another.
Rio flinched as the boy's face turned toward him.
Or what was left of it.
His eye sockets were hollow, his nose half-melted. But his mouth moved.
"Kill me."
The words were muffled by the fluid, distorted and wet—but they were unmistakable.
Kill me.
Rio's hands hovered towards the cord connecting the boy to the life support system. His fingers rested upon it, ready to pull it out—one final act of mercy.
He froze.
Subject H-21 had hyper-regeneration.
If he was put on a proper diet, went through physical rehabilitation—given proper nutrients and time—his body would heal fully, with no scars to show from the ordeal.
The scars on his mind though?
No one could promise that they would ever heal.
Maybe not even till the day he died.
Rio stared at the cord, teeth clenched. He felt sick. Rage, grief, guilt—all crashing against his ribs like tidal waves.
But he couldn't decide that for him.
He let go of the cord.
"I'll definitely save you," he whispered. "That's a promise."
As he walked away, the vat behind him shook violently.
And then the scream came—distorted, raw, and heartbreaking.
It followed him all the way out of the room.
"What the hell was in there?" Daiki asked as Rio stepped out, pale-faced and silent.
Rio just clenched his fists tightly around his pistol, the cold grip of the weapon being the only thing that could assure him. The sound of those screams still echoed in his mind.
"It's better if you don't look."
Daiki didn't push it. Not now, since the sound of boots marching in formation rang out in the distance.
"They're too many, Rio. Woof. Almost thirty of 'em."
Rio hesitated for a split second, the image of Subject H-21 flashing before his eyes.
"Kiba… you can go for their necks."
They weren't playing house. The only way to ensure no one died was by being vastly stronger than your opponent.
Kiba bared his teeth and gave a silent nod.
Mercy was a luxury that belonged only to the strong.
And he hadn't been strong enough.
RATATATATA
A cacophony of bullets rang out like an angry choir.
The enemies had arrived—and this time, in full force.
No more was he faced with scattered guards who had been ill-equipped to face them.
Now what stood before them was a veritable army.
Troops standing in the front line, decked in exo-skeletal suits, their metal surfaces gleaming with a glossy sheen.
Twenty machine guns were trained at them, and Rio's mind went blank.
"GET OUT OF HERE!"
And hell rained down.
The bullets rang out in unison, a symphony of destruction intent on reaping lives.
"Shit," Rio cursed as he huddled behind a wall, desperately thinking of a way he could turn the tables.
THWACK
Rio dodged out of the way as a large vine landed with a crack on his previous position, denting the stone floor.
RATATATATA
Another round of bullets rained down on his now exposed position, forcing Rio to roll on the floor in embarrassment.
ROOOARR
Kiba dived into the fray of the armed guards, Daiki just ahead of him, absorbing all their gunfire. The enemies' shooting paused briefly from that roar—a chance Kiba immediately capitalized on.
He dived into their midst with reckless abandon, discarding any sense of self-preservation.
'They can't shoot at me without worrying about their comrades,' or so Rio thought—and was nearly punished for his wishful thinking.
He leaned back exaggeratedly, his back almost hitting the floor as he dodged a bullet aimed for his head.
These people had thrown defense to the wind as well, confident that their armor would protect them from the incoming fire.
"Goddamn! We're in a fantasy world, aren't we? Why do you people keep using guns?" Rio cursed as he pointed his pistols at one of the enemy's joints, blasting it. The man crumpled.
Armor couldn't be dense enough at the joints to facilitate movement—or at the eyes—but he refrained from putting bullets in someone's skull.
A bullet shot toward his face, which he promptly deflected with his braces, the bullet ricocheting off them and slamming into another gunman's knee.
Rio staggered backward with the shot, the explosive force of the bullet leaving him disoriented.
A second shot rang out, and Rio watched as the bullet ejected slowly from the barrel of a heavy sniper, heading straight for his position.
No—not him. It was heading for Kiba, and he was unaware.
Rio was too far to reach him, and the shot would land any second now.
Thinking on his feet, he punched forward. The chains on his hands snaked outward and snapped back like a whip, knocking the bullet off course and crashing it into a wall.
Rio had overextended, leaving himself open to enemy retaliation.
A bullet raced toward him, and Rio watched slowly as it neared his heart.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to steer his body out of the way, in an effort to fall down—but his body wouldn't complete the action in time, the lag between his thoughts and actions desensitizing him.
Rio opted for the next best option, aligning his shoulders in the path of the shot to get out of the predicament lightly.
Pain exploded, coursing like lightning and firing off in his synapses. Rio was almost grateful; the old man had been experiencing this kind of pain and hadn't screamed more. Tears threatened to spill from the corners of his eyes from the experience.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the corridor—
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Impressive, boy. You never cease to amaze me. No one manages to escape Wilson's shots. Yet, not only did you dodge it, but you saved your friend too. Truly magnificent!"
He was huge. Taller than anyone here, thick and solid like a wall of muscle wrapped in a tailored suit. He moved with the relaxed arrogance of a predator—a Japanese man whose towering mass wasn't sumo-like, more like someone cosplaying as Wilson Fisk.
"And all this without your quirk to boot. You have proven to be the most amazing specimen I've come across in my years guarding this place."
Rio didn't answer as blood dripped from his wounds. The bullet had shot cleanly through, denting bone on impact. He clutched the wound tightly, trying to stem the blood flow.
The man chuckled. "You've earned some praise. But… it's all pointless."
Rio's eyes narrowed as he watched the uninjured gunmen file in behind the man.
"Your little rebellion?" the man continued, voice almost sympathetic. "It's already been put to rest. The dissidents among you who refused to listen to reason have been put down."
"What are you—"
Something heavy landed at his feet.
A mangled corpse.
Rio's mind froze as he refused to process the sight gazing back at him.
Sae's lifeless eyes staring up at him.